Terry Hunt & Carl Lipo finally resolved the Eco-cide that brought about the demise of Easter Island. After years of painstaking field research the resolution isn't apocalyptic as other authors have sought. Previous historians, geologists, and adventurers have tried to uncover the madness of how the inhabitants of this Island collapsed. Both Hunt & Lipo have brought extravagant mythology to an end; the Island didn't fall from civil war, but the inadvertant introduction of European germs was a factor. Human excess isn't a culprit either, the forests that collapsed introducing climate, soil erosion had its origin in the introduction of Polynesian rats that ate the seen saplings of indigenous plants, introducing ecocide. It only took decades, not centuries, but once started it was quick and lethal.

"The Statues that Walked" is now out from Free Press and it is great reading. Both archeologists have served their discipline well in finally putting to rest the demise of Easter Island.

September 14, 1822 Jean-Francois Champollion burst into his brother's Paris office at the Academy of Inscriptions yelling 'I've done IT'. Champollion promptly fainted before he could utter new of the great intellectual feat for which he's still celebrated: the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyph's.

The story of this young, brash, hot-headed, volatile scholar began after being continuously expelled from every local school he attended. At age 10 he arrived at Grenoble, a town in southwest France where he found himself engrossed in Oriental history and languages. Born in 1790 during a time when France was basking in the new exotic glow of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798-1801). He began learning ancient Coptic at age 12 by narrating his daily domestic routine of manual labor and reading, soon he began scaling his ambition to conquer an unimaginable challenge: decipherment! His older brother would remain an invaluable asset, strengthening his Jean's temperament, his reach and social connections as well as purchasing a large library to facilitate his younger brothers learning.

His first breakthrough was in deciding that the ancient Egyptian code did NOT refer to abstractions BUT was phonetic. Having trusted his instincts, he began to work his code breaking skills to fortify an assumption that put him at odds with many others established scholars. Champollion's breakthrough would initially be fielded by a young Englishman named Thomas Young, who in 1819 published a key insight that hieroglyph's were alphabetic in nature. Champollion's insight would finally seek ratification between 1822-1824 with numerous sophisticated publications proving his initial instincts correct.

In 1828, Champollion would make a two year financed journey to Egypt. This would remain the single most powerful intellectual experience of his life. Moving between traditional finds like Abu Simbel and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings would open up to him as he quickly sought to record both new and old inscriptions. Having returned home in 1832, he died early at the age of 41 while working on his magnum opus, a hieroglyphic dictionary.

His discoveries were nearly lost because Champollion didn't have trained students working under him. The task of collating volumes of unpublished letters, monographs and professional correspondence was left for his brother to assemble. Most were published decades after his death!

William McNeill's ground breaking seminal book (Plagues & Peoples) is a cogent account of archaic, mythological civilizations beginning to congregate after the achievement of planting, the single most advanced achievement of neolithic man. Epidemic diseases flourished throughout neolithic periods with the propensity for large homogenized concentrations of peoples in tight quarters with pestilence ridden animals created the vortex of opportunity for extreme pathogens to flourish.......as does the terror.

A second century smallpox epidemic ultimately quickened the pace of the fall of Rome; the 14th century saw the of bubonic plague captured by Italian merchants along the Silk Road arriving south to Mediterranean littoral regions like Venice and Constantinople wiping out nearly a third of western Europe's population.

William McNeill recounts how human ingenuity, trading routes and progress itself is inseparable from the mythological terror of premodern societies.